1. Old-Testament Teaching
T of the traditional Semitic religious
be
estament liefs, the idea of a shadowy world (see
Teaching.
SHEOL, and cf. C. Gruneisen,
Der Ahnen
kuUus und die Urreligion Israels,
Halle,
1900; Smith,
Rd. of Sem.).
But neither the promism which inspired the patriarchal, nor the motives
of the
Mosaic, legislation contain clear indications of
the endurance of the individual. The account of
Elijah's translation is indecisive, as are the ease
of Enoch and the saga concerning Moss's death.
Loss of immortality consequent on sin is presented
only in
Gen. ii. 17, iii. 22;
cf. Wisdom i. 13, ii. 24.
Near the close of the exile faith in immortality is
expressed in poetio-rhetorical fashion: " deliverance
from Sheol" or from "death"
(Ps. xxxiii. 19,
ciii. 4); "eternal life" is "length of (earthly) days"
(Ps. xxf. 26, xxx. 3, xxxvu. 28, xli. 12). In communion, with God the pious one has life and happiness, and neither heaven and earth nor death and
transitoriness can disturb him (Pa. baiii. 22-25);
God is the "life" of the pious
(Deut. xxx. 20).
So far as death is regarded as the punishment of sin,
the Hebrews sought to overcome this by the doctrine of resurrection. Previous to the time of the
Maccabees, hope of a new and perfect form of existence beyond the grave is rarely met. The chief
passage is
Job xix. 25
sqq., which may signify either God will finally justify the dead (H. Schultz),
or God will indemnify him in another life (Dillmann), or "God will after my death appear as my
advocate" (G. Runze,
Studien zur vergleichenden
Religionswissenschaft, ii. 199-203, Berlin, 1894), or,
in spite of his hopeless condition, God will yet
snatch him from death. In prophetic teaching, as
Hos. xiii. 14;
Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19;
I Sam. ii. 6;
Ezek. xxxvii., the ideal of national regeneration
was transferred to individual renewal, and the
ethicizing of the personal relationship to God led
to
more distinct hopes of a future life-the "resurrection of many"
(Dan. xii. 2).
Denial of a hope of resurrection in Ecclesiastes does not indicate an
opposite tendency at this time; the judgment there
referred to (xi. 9-10, iii. 22) is not
future; the spirit
of life is the breath of God which returns to him.
Hope for the future was also bound up with the
Messiah, yet not without mythological features
(Dan. x. 13).
The relation of this post-exilic doctrine of the resurrection to the ancient Persian
religion is not yet cleared up (A. Kohut,
Ueber die jüdische Angelologie wnd Daemanologie,
Leipsic, 1866; E. Stave, Einfluss
des Parsismus auf das Judentum,
ib. 1898). The works of Habschmann,
Wünsche, and P. Gröbler (Die Anaichten über
Unaterblichkeit and Atiferatehung in der jüdischen
Littvatur der beiden letzten Jahrhunderfen vor
Christus, in JSK, 1879, pp. 651 sqq.) give an
insight into the Persian, the pre-Christian Jewish
(Apocryphal, pseudepigraphical, and Talmudic)
doctrine of immortality. The resemblances are
striking, the historical connection not certain.
Kohut thinks that Parseeism owes more to Judaism than Judaism to Parseeism; e.g., the doctrine
of the seven paradises, and hell, and that at the
end of.the world grievous plagues will precede the
coming of the Savior.
